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CPSC Launches Consumer Deputy Program On Poison Prevention Packaging For Prescription Drugs

Release Date: February 27, 1976

Hundreds of volunteers nationwide will be going door-to-door asking consumers questions related to child-resistant packaging of prescription drugs as the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission launches its first Consumer Deputy Program on Poison Prevention Packaging for Prescription Drugs.

Beginning March 8 and continuing through early April, approximately 300 students, consumer and community organization members, and state and local government workers, trained by staff from the Commission's 13 Area Offices will canvass their communities to determine the packaging practices of local pharmacies relative to prescription drugs and child-resistant closures.

Coincidentally, National Poison Prevention Week will be observed March 21 through the 27th.

The Poison Prevention Packaging Act of 1970, administered by the Commission, provides that those household products, including prescription drugs, which are found to be hazardous or potentially hazardous may be required to be packaged in child-resistant containers that the majority of children under five years of age cannot open. In the case of a regulated prescription drug, a non-complying package is available only upon request of the customer or the prescribing physician.

Data currently being collected by the Commission from several poison control centers throughout the country indicate that the ingestion of oral prescription drugs by children less than five years of age continues. Many of these ingestions involve drugs dispensed in vials without safety closures which were purchased after the effective date, April 16, 1974, of the oral prescription drug regulation. It is not clear whether these containers represent non-compliance on the part of the pharmacist or were requested by persons with children less than five years of age.

According to a CPSC spokesperson, the use of consumer deputies to survey consumers directly should net the Commission a greater understanding of retail pharmaceutical practices than would be possible through an extensive field enforcement program of retail outlets.

The information collected by the deputies will provide a sample of the marketplace in addition to alerting the Commission to the names and number of pharmacies which may not be complying with the Poison Prevention Packaging Act. The anonymity of consumers contacted by the deputies will be preserved.

This is the seventh Consumer Deputy program the Commission has sponsored since it began operation in May 1973. Previous consumer deputy programs involved toys, furniture polishes, oven and drain cleaners, children's sleepwear and decorative Christmas lights.

Consumers seeking additional information about child-resistant closures should call the Commission's toll-free hotline at 800/638-2772.

Release Number
76-015

About the U.S. CPSC
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risk of injury or death associated with the use of thousands of types of consumer products. Deaths, injuries, and property damage from consumer product-related incidents cost the nation more than $1 trillion annually. CPSC's work to ensure the safety of consumer products has contributed to a decline in the rate of injuries associated with consumer products over the past 50 years. 

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